Along the Path

So I wrote a few days ago about the Lawson Trek's delightful afternoon with the family Guerry, direct descendants of Pierre Guerry, one of the original settlers of the French colony on the lower Santee. It was not until I returned and spoke with the redoubtable Val Green, who knows more about John Lawson's journey than any other person living, that I realized to what degree our afternoon created a sort of historical reenactment.

Douglas Guerry, direct descendant of Pierre Guerry, who would have been around during Lawson's trek, and Jean Guerry, who married into the family and traces her own local ancestry only back to the 1720s because she just can't be bothered to trace further back.

That is, Lawson didn't just stay with French Santees. He probably spent an evening with a direct ancestor of our hosts.

Here's the tale, as I understand it from Val (and my Huguenot sources, Susan Bates and Cheves Leland).

We finished our first journey at the homesite of Mons. Daniel Huger, where Lawson spent his first night after getting out of his canoe, having begun his trip up the Santee. His second night he spent with someone he calls Mons. Gallian the elder, whom historians have identified as a Monsieur Joachim Gaillard and his wife, Ester Paparel, who lived in what Lawson calls "a very curious contriv'd House, built of Brick and Stone." We passed near the site of this house in our wanderings in the Francis Marion National Forest and probably slept not more than a couple miles from its site, wherever it actually is. The next day we had cake and coffee with the Guerrys, and that night we spent warm and dry on the padded pews in the St. James United Methodist Church, which they hospitably opened for our use.

The St. James United Methodist Church, where the Lawson Trek spent a very happy and dry night.

The morning after his stay with Mons. Gallian, Lawson was ferried across the engorged Santee by an Indian guide, whereas Katie and I just walked across the Route 17A bridge, though the river was plenty high for us too. As we continued walking we stumbled into some kind of farm development that included horses and a lake that was completely not on the map and had to scramble around to figure out where the hell we were. At approximately this point Lawson too found himself stuck. With the Santee in enormous flood, his group of six explorers and their lone guide (they had left their four canoe guides behind when they began walking) disputed about the way to the home of Mons. Gallian the younger, evidently one Barthelemy Gaillard,.

Six hours later the Indian did come back in the canoe -- "being half drunk, which assur'd us they had found some Place of Refreshment." That place was Mons. Gallian the younger's, where one drunken canoe ride later ("several Miles thro' the Woods, being often half full of Water") Lawson found "our comrades in the same Trim the Indian was in." They passed a merry evening there. Val tells me that this house -- of Bartholomew Galliard -- was soon inhabited by a young woman who married Bartholomew. A daughter of the Guerry family, into whose family the house passed. Which is to say, there's great likelihood that the blood of Bartholomew Gallian (or Galliard) and his Guerry wife flowed through the veins of our hosts as we drank coffee and ate cake. I suppose it's not an enormous deal, but it feels like one to me. We didn't get drunk with the Guerrys -- Lawson and his party were so drunk leaving their party that as they walked that night towards a Santee Indian camp, one of his compatriots fell off a log that was the only way across one of the creeks -- probably what is now called the Wee Tee. Lawson, "laughing at the Accident, and not taking good Heed to my Steps, came to the same Misfortune: All our Bedding was wet." Served him right, of course, but a cold northwest wind blowing "prepar'd such a Night's Lodging for me, that I never desire to have the like again." Which makes our snug night safe from downpours on the padded pews of the St. James Church all the more delightful in retrospect.

I set out along Lawson's path to see if I could have the kind of fun he did. I had no idea.